Drawn with a team of little atomies,
Athwart men's noses as they lie asleep :
Her waggon spokes made of long spinners' legs;
The cover, of the wings of grasshoppers;
The traces, of the smallest spider's web;
The collars, of the moonshine's watery beams;
Her whip, of cricket's bone; the lash, of film;
Her waggoner a small grey-coated gnat,
Not half so big as a round little worm,
Pricked from the lazy finger of a maid.
Her chariot is an empty hazel nut,
Made by the joiner squirrel, or old grub,
Time out of mind the fairies' coachniakers.
And in this state she gallops night by night
Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love:
O'er courtiers' knees, that dream of courtesies straight:
O'er lawyers' fingers, who straight dream on fees:
O'er ladies' lips, who straight on kisses dream;
Sometimes she gallops o'er a courtier's nose,
And then dreams he of smelling out a suit:
And sometimes comes she with a tithe-pig's tail,
Tickling a parson as he lies asleep ;
Then dreams he of another benefice.
Sometimes she driveth o'er a soldier's neck,
And then he dreams of cutting foreign throats,
Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades,
Of healths five fathom deep, and them anon
Drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes;
And being thus frighted, swears a prayer or two,
And sleeps again.
11. THE APOTHECARY.
I do remember an apothecary,
And hereabouts he dwells, whom late I noted
In tattered weeds, with overwhelming brows,
Culling of simples: meagre were his looks;
Sharp misery had worn him to the bones:
And in his needy shop a tortoise hung,
An alligator stuffed, and other skins
Of ill-shaped fishes; and about his shelves.
A beggarly account of empty boxes;
Green earthen pots, bladders, and musty seeds,
Remnants of packthread, and old cakes of roses,
Were thinly scattered to make up a show.
Noting this penury, to myself I said,
An' if a man did need a poison now,
Whose sale is present death in Mantua,
Here lives a caitiff wretch would sell it him.
Oh, this same thought did but fore-run my need,
And this same needy man must sell it me.
As I remember, this should be the house.
12. HOTSPUR'S DESCRIPTION OF A FOP.
I remember, when the fight was done,
When I was dry with rage and extreme toil,
Breathless and faint, leaning upon my sword,
Came there a certain lord, neat, trimly drest;
Fresh as a bridegroom, and his chin, new reaped,
Showed like a stubble land at harvest home.
He was perfuméd like a milliner;
And 'twixt his finger and his thumb he held
A pouncet-box, which ever and anon
gave his nose, and took it away again;
Who, therewith angry, when it next came there,
Took it in snuff.-And still he smiled and talked;
And as the soldiers bare dead bodies by,
He called them untaught knaves, unmannerly,
To bring a slovenly unhandsome corse
Betwixt the wind and his nobility.
With many holiday and lady-terms
He questioned me: amongst the rest demanded
My prisoners in your majesty's behalf.
I then, all smarting with my wounds, being galled
To be so pestered with a popinjay,
Out of my grief, and my impatience,
Answer'd neglectingly, I know not what:
He should, or should not: for he made me mad,
To see him shine so brisk, and smell so sweet,
And talk so like a waiting gentlewoman,
f guns and drums, and wounds: (God save the mark!)
And telling me, the sovereign'st thing on earth
Was parmaceti for an inward bruise;
And that it was great pity-so it was,
That villainous saltpetre should be digged
Out of the bowels of the harmless earth,
Which many a good tall fellow had destroyed
So cowardly and but for these vile guns,
He would himself have been a soldier.
18. CLARENCE AND BRAKENBURY.
BRAK. Why looks your grace so heavily to-day?
CLAR. O, I have passed a miserable night,
So full of ugly sights, of ghastly dreams,
That, as I am a Christian faithful man,
I would not spend another such a night,
Though 'twere to buy a world of happy days;
So full of dismal terror was the time.
BRAK. What was your dream, my lord? I pray you tell
CLAR. Methought that I had broken from the Tower, And was embarked to cross to Burgundy,
And in my company my brother Gloster;
Who from my cabin tempted me to walk
Upon the hatches. Thence we looked toward England,
And cited up a thousand heavy times,
During the wars of York and Lancaster,
That had befallen us. As we paced along
Upon the giddy footing of the hatches,
Methought that Gloster stumbled, and, in falling,
Struck me (that sought to stay him) overboard,
Into the tumbling billows of the main.
Lord, Lord, methought what pain it was to drown!
What dreadful noise of waters in mine ears!
What ugly sights of death within mine eyes!
Methought I saw a thousand fearful wrecks
Ten thousand men that fishes gnawed upon;
Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl,
Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels;
All scattered in the bottom of the sea.
Some lay in dead men's skulls; and in those holes
Where eyes did once inhabit, there were crept,
As 'twere in scorn of eyes, reflecting gems,
That wooed the slimy bottom of the deep,
And mocked the dead bones that lay scattered by.
BRAK. Had you such leisure in the time of death,
To gaze upon
the secrets of the deep?
CLAR. Methought I had; and often did I strive
To yield the ghost; but still the envious flood
Kept in my soul, and would not let it forth
To seek the empty vast and wandering air ;
But smothered it within my panting bulk,
Which almost burst to belch it in the sea.
BRAK. Awaked you not with this sore agony?
CLAR. No, no; my dream was lengthened after life.
O then began the tempest to my soul:
I passed, methought, the melancholy flood,
With that grim ferryman that poets write of,
Unto the kingdom of perpetual night.
The first that there did greet my stranger soul,
Was my great father-in-law, renownèd Warwick,
Who cried aloud-" What scourge for perjury
Can this dark monarchy afford false Clarence?"
And so he vanished. Then came wandering by
A shadow like an angel, with bright hair
Dappled in blood, and he shrieked out aloud-
"Clarence is come, false, fleeting, perjured Clarence,
That stabbed me in the field by Tewkesbury;
Seize on him, Furies, take him to your torinents!"
With that, methought, a legion of foul fiends
Environed me, and howlèd in mine ears
Such hideous cries, that with the very noise
I trembling waked; and for a season after
Could not believe but that I was in hell:
Such terrible impression made my dream.
BRAK. No marvel, lord, that it affrighted you;
I am afraid, I promise you, to hear you tell it.
CLAR. O, Brakenbury, I have done those things
Which now give evidence against my soul,
For Edward's sake: and see how he requites me
O God! if my deep prayers cannot appease thee,
But thou wilt be avenged on my misdeeds,
Yet execute thy wrath on me alone:
O spare my guiltless wife and my poor children!
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